


Catharsis in the Aftermath

by Suaine



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 03:02:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suaine/pseuds/Suaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles came to say goodbye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catharsis in the Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> This story was a way to deal with the ball of emotions the trailer for 306 caused for me. It's not a story about Derek and Blake, it is a story of Stiles reacting to the morning after.

Stiles pushes open the door to the loft. After everything, he has no idea why he’s even here. The little thread of hope that Derek’s still alive is nothing against the churning in his stomach that he’ll find nothing but a lifeless corpse. He thinks of Heather and swallows down bile. He can do this. He has to know. If Derek got away like Ennis did, maybe he made it back to a place he felt safe.

Wondering if he should have checked the shell of a house in the woods first, Stiles comes up short when he sees the silhouette against the window. It’s undeniably Derek, he can tell because even in the low light, the tattoo on his naked back stands out in stark contrast.

Something in Stiles relaxes and he can’t help but smile. Derek’s alive. He’s standing right there, like some kind of ridiculous emo model. He wants to call out, something teasing, maybe a “missed you, asshole” when something else registers.

There’s the hint of coffee in the musty air, air that smells like disinfectant and sex. There’s a woman curled up on the couch, mug in her hands, dressed in nothing but a large t-shirt and boxers several sizes too big. For an insane moment, Stiles wonders if she brought them because there is no way Derek wears boxers under the tightness of his jeans.

“Well,” he spits, anger starting to come from nowhere. “That’s just fucking great. You’re not one to waste time, are you Derek?”

Heat and cold is prickling on his skin and his heart beats like it’s trying to break out of his chest. “You are such an asshole. I can’t believe I-”

Derek turns around, a strange, soft look on his face. “What do you want, Stiles?”

Stiles trembles with pent up rage. “How about you use your fucking phone and call Isaac or Scott or Boyd, huh? Let them know you’re alive after this bullshit situation you were responsible for and don’t leave them hanging thinking that their-”

He catches himself before he blurts out the word alpha. His eyes fall on Derek’s lady friend and that’s when this moment gets even more surreal. He blinks. “Ms. Blake.” He can’t even process this, what the hell. “You know what, no. Don’t call us. Don’t do anything. You clearly don’t care about anything but yourself, you enormous bag of dicks.”

Derek doesn’t say anything. He just looks blank.

“Fuck you,” Stiles says. “You think we didn’t care? Scott nearly died because he thought he’d gotten you killed. Isaac and Boyd, they were ready to rip one of those jerk-offs to pieces for you.”

“What?” Derek tenses.

Stiles is in no mood to placate him. “Yeah, guess what, there are people who care if you live or die. What a fucking surprise, not that you deserve it. After what happened, you didn’t think to check that they were okay? For all you knew, they could have been dead, or worse! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Stiles, I-”

Stiles could use a whistle right about now, because he doesn’t want to hear this. “No. I don’t need anything from you. This whole little buddy thing we had going, over. Done with. Kaput. You go ahead and get your freak on with a nice little school teacher while we have the worst night of our lives. Boyd and Isaac are better off with Scott anyway.”

He turns to leave when he hears the rustle of clothes and the soft steps of bare feet. “Mr. Stilinski. Stiles. I just want to-”

Facing her, he narrows his eyes. “Who are you?” He’s done with this shit. He heard about the other night from Scott, the school teacher hiding from a bloody werewolfy fate all night. Someone who should have been staying far away from werewolf business if she had any sense.

Ms. Blake smiles, oddly severe with her tussled hair and smudged makeup. “You know who I am.”

Glancing one last time at Derek, Stiles shakes his head. “No, I really really don’t.”

He leaves to the sound of silence.

+

Stiles slams the door on his way in. His dad is home. Fuck it all to hell.

“Hey, kiddo, how was the meet?”

There are files piled all over the kitchen table, again, and Stiles can tell from the wrinkles in his shirt that his dad hasn’t changed out of that uniform since they left for the trip yesterday. “Didn’t happen. Got stuck in traffic and had to stay the night at some motel.” He shivers, thinking about that long, dark night.

“You okay, kid? You don’t look so good.”

He nods. What else can he do, tell his dad that a stupid fucking werewolf nearly died and then everyone went crazy because they missed him? It wasn’t like that. It’s just Scott who can’t stand the idea of causing someone’s death, goody two-shoes that he’s become – and Stiles is totally taking all the credit for that, fuck yeah, that spiderman reference was the bomb – but Stiles shouldn’t even care. Why would he care?

“Yeah, uh, bit of a rough night, didn’t sleep well. Scott kept me up.” It’s not a lie. He tries to keep them to a minimum these days, not that half-truths are any better. His dad nods, but doesn’t return to his work right away. Stiles can tell there’s something he’s gearing up to say. “Anything new on the case?”

Dad twitches, the way he does when he really wants to just share something, get some input, because he’s stalled out with conventional police work. “We found another body.”

Harris, Stiles thinks. Of course. “Oh, uh, who is it? Anyone else I know?” He means it to come out flippant, but his voice cracks at the end. Heather. Derek. He’s all out of fucks to give, and yet.

“Yeah, actually. It’s that teacher of yours, Harris.” Dad never liked the guy, not after the whole kanima debacle. Getting back on the good side of Sheriff Stilinski is no small feat.

Stiles nods, feeling nothing, everything, but mostly frustrated rage. “Harris.”

“I know you didn’t like him-”

Shrugging, Stiles says, “No, I told you, he hates me. Hated me. I wouldn’t have wanted him dead though, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Another joke that dies in the space between them.

“Stiles,” his dad starts. “The FBI. There are patterns. Patterns of behavior that they look at. Just, be careful, okay?”

Great, Stiles thinks as he slams into his room. His dad thinks he’s a serial killer. Could this day get any worse? It’s only about 10am, there’s plenty of room for new heights of suckitude. Which is, of course, why Derek Hale is standing in front of Stiles’ wall of weird, one finger tapping softly against the word “Darach”.

+

“Get out,” Stiles hisses, frozen on the doorstep like some kind of small furry animal face to face with a predator.

Derek actually flinches. “Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?” His knuckles brush over the side of the photo that has Heather’s lifeless face. It makes something in Stiles’ chest seize. “These murders, you think they are supernatural.”

Stiles steps into the room. “Why are you here, Derek? I thought I made myself pretty freaking clear back at your little love nest.”

Derek has the gall to roll his eyes. “Stiles, why did you come to the loft?”

“It doesn’t matter!” Stiles nearly yells. He regulates himself down again, breathes in and out carefully. “Go back and have another quickie with my teacher. I’ve got work to do.”

Crossing his arms, Derek doesn’t make a move to leave. Not even a little. Stiles is contemplating a pulley system to get him out the window. “Why are you so upset about this?”

Stiles gapes. It’s probably unattractive, but who the fuck cares right now? “What? Oh my god, what is your damage? You didn’t think we’d care that you’d died? You didn’t think we’d be a little bit upset to lose a- a friend, or or an alpha or whatever?”

Derek drops his hands to his side. “Why do you care?”

Sighing, Stiles notices that he’s closer, still. There has always been something pushing them together, some kind of natural force like gravity. “I don’t really know,” he says. “I don’t know. I don’t get you.”

“I don’t get you either,” Derek says, quietly. “You could have a normal life. The others, they don’t really have a choice anymore-”

Stiles snorts. “And whose fault is that?”

“I don’t know what to say to that.” Derek looks sad from up close, tired and worn and not at all like someone who just got laid properly. Stiles is maybe starting to feel a little bit sorry for the guy. Some of that first elation is back, that first heady feeling that maybe they aren’t quite lost yet. Hope. Something.

Stiles nods at the wall of weird. “You could give that a set of fresh eyes. I hear sometimes a new perspective is all that a person really needs.”

He’s not just talking about murder cases.

+

Derek leaves around midnight.

There is that one moment when Stiles’ dad headed for work where Stiles makes Derek hide in the closet, but otherwise the day is good. They go through the events of these murders a few times, discuss possible scenarios, potential suspects, and Derek has a few ideas about other sources to look at.

Stiles’ bone-deep frustration lifts somewhat over the course of the day and it occurs to him only now that perhaps Derek being alive is going a long way to make him feel better. He doesn’t really want to examine why that is, or why he keeps making crude, angry jokes about teacher’s pets and casual sex gone wrong.

Derek lets them all go without comment.

Leaning out of the window, Stiles has a last parting shot. “I don’t know why you trust her, Derek. But be careful. She showed up just when all this started.”

Derek sighs. “I don’t trust anyone,” he says almost too quiet for Stiles to hear. It sounds resigned, like a mantra often repeated, never quite believed.

Stiles smiles sadly. “Yeah, you do. You trusted me and Scott with your life when we still kind of actively wanted you dead. You’re a ball of fluffy trust and eyebrows.”

Said eyebrows do not think Stiles is very funny. They’re very good at expressing themselves. Maybe the only part of Derek that is. “Maybe she reminds me of you,” Derek says, and Stiles knows without a doubt that it was supposed to be a joke. He knows. Derek knows it, too. And they both know that it didn’t quite come out like that.

They stare at each other for a long, breathless moment and then Derek’s gone, disappeared, gone poof like a magician’s rabbit. Stiles stares into the night for a long time. He has a lot to think about.


End file.
